Written by Student Assistant Christian Bond
NWC Tournament Website
MCMINNVILLE, Ore. – Despite scoring two runs in the top of the ninth, the Pacific Lutheran University baseball team fell to host Linfield College 6-5 on Saturday, ending its appearance at the double elimination Northwest Conference Tournament at Roy Helser Field.
The third-seeded Lutes (22-12) trailed the top-seeded Wildcats (25-11) 6-3 entering the top of the ninth inning. Connor Cantu led off the inning with a single. A couple of fly outs send Landon Packard to the plate. Packard swatted his fourth home run in as many games, cutting the Linfield lead to one but the Lutes couldn't scratch across the tying run, bowing out of the tournament after suffering their second straight one-run setback.
"Landon is an absolute gamer," Head Coach Nolan Soete said. "He has carried this team offensively all year and in my opinion is the best second baseman to ever play at PLU."
The Lutes got on the board first when Frank Airy put a ball in play that scored Kory VanderStaay in the top of the second inning. Later in the fifth, Anthony Gosline drove in Cantu on a single to left. Cole Johnson drove in Gosline, giving the Lutes a 3-0 lead at the halfway point.
That lead went away in the bottom half of the fifth inning. The Wildcats struck for five runs, three coming off a double from Ben Andrews. Ryan Ross capped the inning with a two run single.
Cole Johnson was a beast at the plate for PLU, helping his own cause on the mound by going four-for-four while Gosline and Cantu both finished two-for-four. Linfield's Riley Newman earned the win on the mound, going the distance and striking out six while allowing five earned runs.
"We played sloppy baseball," Soete said about the fifth inning. "We made a couple of uncharacteristic errors and threw some bad pitches. It was not a good combination of events. That pretty much sums up our tournament, we played good baseball for the most part. We had one bad inning in each game and they ended up being the deciding factor. I'm proud of this team, especially the senior class. They work hard and play the game the right way."
The Lutes have five more games to impress the NCAA Division III Tournament selection committee, beginning on Monday with a resumption of a halted non-conference game against the University of Puget Sound. The game will resume at 4 p.m. in the bottom of the fifth at UPS with the score tied 2-2.
